Go to www.airdisaster.com...click on crash videos....left side..5th video down...Why did this AF Bus crash... the plane crashs into the woods...Why couldn't the crew Pull up ..it almost looks like a controlled crash ..the runway over run video is pretty interesting also...I still get chills watching the WTC crash..I cant even imagine what that was like ..but we can't forget why it happened ..and cant forget the crew and pass. who are gone forever .SW

Actually, the crash was not related to FBW at all. The actual cause of the crash was the crew's misunderstanding of the normal control laws. The aircraft was slowed to alpha floor, which is the max angle of attack. The aircraft entered a very slow descent and the crew noticed the on coming trees. They tried to execute a go around by hitting the TOGA switches. However, due to the slow airspeed the engines (CFM) were extremely slow in spooling up. The result was the continued descent into the trees.

As a side note, I don't think anyone was killed in the crash although there were injuries. Having the gear down and the slow descent rate proved to be a lifesaver to the crew and pax.

The short version: Flight crew screwed up. Too low, under surrounding terrain, while not in a stable altitude or speed, and too slow. The aircraft and engines performed beyond design limits, but by the time full throttle was applied, it was too late.

The long version. I will "republish" Crosswind's excellent answer from 21 April 2004. Very interesting:

"Crosswind
From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2000, 1379 posts, RR: 41
Reply: 35
Posted Wed Apr 21 2004 21:19:54 UTC+1 and read 147 times:
Some information on the Air France A320 crash, in the hope that people will stop spouting unsupported theories about it!

The Air France A320 that was written off at Habsheim was being operated on a public transport flight by Air France at the time of the crash. The aircraft had been used in flight testing, but had been delivered to Air France several days before the accident, and was involved in a promotional flight when it crashed. The A320 was in service operating revenue flights at the time of the accident, F-CFKC was in fact Air France's 3rd A320.

Most importantly, the fly-by-wire did not "lock up" - and the plane did not "think" it was landing and prevent the application of TOGA power. The accident was classic pilot error, no fault was found with the FBW system...

Some findings of the accident investigation:

• The captain had participated as Air France's technical pilot in developmental test flying on the A320, during which manoeuvres were carried out beyond the normal operational limitations. This could have lead to overconfidence in the systems of the new aircraft.
• The flight had only been briefly prepared, without real consultation between the departments (of Air France) concerned, or with the crew.
• Descent was started 5.5nm from the aerodrome. Throughout the descent, the engines were throttled back to flight idle with the airspeed reducing.
• At 1000ft AGL the rate of descent was still ~600fpm.
• The captain levelled off at a height of ~30ft, engines at flight idle, pitch attitude increasing. He did not have time to stabilise the angle of attack at the maximum value he had selected.
• Full-power was rapidly applied when the angle of attack was 15° and the airspeed 122kt.
• The response of the engines was normal, and in compliance with their certification.

The cause:
• The accident resulted from a combination of the following;

In summary the crew flew the aircraft onto the wrong side of the drag curve in a critical situation overflying a very small grass strip with trees above the height of the aircraft off the end of the runway, the aircraft was low, slow and at a high angle of attack - there was no residual energy to get them out of trouble. It's a basic lesson in flying, and the A320 was found to have actually exceeded it's certified performance once TOGA power was selected.

The crew had been briefed to overfly the concrerte runway 02/20 at 100ft, but unknown to them the airshow was alligned along grass strip runway 16/34. The crew were unaware of this until descending through 200ft, 24 seconds before the accident, at which time they had to chose to reposition the aircraft to conduct an overflight they had not briefed for over runway 16/34 as the height decayed to 30ft and the airspeed to 122kt...

If you're interested in the subject Macarthur Job's "Air Disaster" series is excellent - the Habsheim A320 accident is covered in depth in Volume 3.

Re-post of my original reply to this thread:
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1235332/6/

Regards
CROSSWIND"

"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots."

Starlionblue, thanks for posting that. I had read the accident report and analysis, but couldn't find the link.

Concordeboy, perhaps I am thick or something, but what was the point of your post? Care to elaborate? As I said in my last line, I didn't think there were any fatalities. Obviously, my memory is failing. But again, the accident was not a FBW related crash.

It wasn't a paying passengers flight was it! I thought it was just showing off Airbus's aircraft and just doing a display. Although the accident was early in the aircrafts history it did not put anybody off it did it! The captain was to blame hear as far as I know, just didn't judge the length of the airfield and the height of the trees. And obviously didn't know much about his aircraft either!

I was under the impression that it was a testing aircraft for a pure computerized flight system, and no people were on board.

I remember on that program where the video was from they were talking about having a totaly computerized cockpit with no pilots and then they showed this, a test flight for a computerized flight system.

Are people confusing this with another accident as i am quite sure that this was not anything involving passengers at all, and not even pilots on board, but was a test of a pure computerized system by airbus. At least that is what the porgram where this clip said, i cannot remember if it was on modern marvels or sometihng on the learning channel.

As a test of common sense, that aircraft exploded and burned after knocking down those trees. In NO WAY is it possible for only 3 people to die in an aircraft accident where the plane errupted in fireball. Even if the plane did not burn, the impact would kill more than 2% of the passengers...............

The accident report and fatality statistics around that video on airdisaster are 100% false, this was a test flight for a computerized system with no people involved at all. Get a bus full of people and crash it into a forest at 150 MPH and see if only 2 people out of 6 die..................give me a break, airdisaster has proven istelf of being the least reliable source for anything aviation.

One more thing-
That is a bit odd that their is a group of passengers totaling over 100 on an aircraft doing stunt manuvers (flybys) at an airshow. I have never heard of passengers participating in airshow manuvers like that on an airfrance brand new aircraft like the "report" says.

I remember the program stating that it was an attempt at an aborted landing but the computers were programmed in a way to lock up at a certain altitude to prevent the pilots or anyone wishing to touch the controls from banging the aircraft into the ground or something similar to that. I am sure someone else here saw that show.

UAlonghaul, it was a flight with a full load of passengers on board! The flight took off from BSL (I know somebody who was on it) and did a low fly pass over the airfield of Habsheim (only a light aircraft airfield) as there was an airshow there. The flight was planned to do some sightseeing before returning to BSL. Unfortunately it never did...

"UAlonghaul, it was a flight with a full load of passengers on board! The flight took off from BSL (I know somebody who was on it) and did a low fly pass over the airfield of Habsheim (only a light aircraft airfield) as there was an airshow there. The flight was planned to do some sightseeing before returning to BSL. Unfortunately it never did...

The cause of the crash is described above."

I truly 100% do not belive you. You are telling me that an air france revenue flight was just "doing some sightseeing" and performing stunts at an airshow? HA! I truly think you are lying.

I like the picture of the black boxes the best, the guy looks like he is carrying a bright orange lunch box, a box that looks nothing like the smaller blackbox shown in the photo, unless they tried to strip the paint off of it or paint it brown and make it look like it was from the 1960's............

I was told in the context of the idea of computer controlled aircraft that this aircraft had no pax on board and was being flown as a test for computer controlled pilotless aircraft by a reputable broadcast company.

I am now being told by someone from Antartica that this did happen.........Sorry pal but no, I do not believe you, or your "friend" that was on this flight. I certainly do not believe that picture of the black box being stolen and then pictures being took that look totally different. That is just stupid.

"LIAR" not lyer, I do not know what a lyer is. I am not concerned if you do or do not communicate with me any further, but I certainly do not believe a story that a plane that was totally demolished by explosion and impact would kill less than 5% of the people on board. Crashing into a forest at 200 mph will kill most people in a car without an explosion, but an aircraft that crashes into the earth and explodes immediately with no time for passenger exit would certainly be unfortunate enough to kill more than a couple passengers.

I truly 100% do not belive you. You are telling me that an air france revenue flight was just "doing some sightseeing" and performing stunts at an airshow? HA! I truly think you are lying.

This was not an 'Air France' revenue flight. At least, not your regular BSL-ORY flight. The aircraft was chartered for the demonstration/sightseeing flight. As were the AF Concorde before the end of Concorde - every week or so a Concorde was chartered for a 1.30 hour supersonic flight over the Atlantic, basically a CDG-CDG supersonic sightseeing flight.

As a test of common sense, that aircraft exploded and burned after knocking down those trees. In NO WAY is it possible for only 3 people to die in an aircraft accident where the plane errupted in fireball. Even if the plane did not burn, the impact would kill more than 2% of the passengers...............

Remember that it was, at the very best, a controlled crash. Airspeed was low, and vertical speed was very low as well. As my FI told me, the aircraft was fitted with quite state-of-the-art anti fire protections. That basically is what saved the PAX onboard. If only, this crash only blatantly demonstrated the efficienc of the anti-fire security (at a terrible price, unfortunately).

Now, a commercial aspect of the thing (not wanting to start an AvsB war, or Europe Vs US war here, we would have done exactly the same). If one of your concurrent suffers a crash like that, and you happen to get hold of such an impressive video (if only, the fireball at the end is indeed very impressive), what would you prefer to say in the comment ?
A - there was a hell of human errors, but the aircraft designed save almost everybody on board from dying.
B - this aircraft uses a very new, barely used before system called "fly by wire' where the pilot does not fly the aircarft anymore, oh and look the huge fireball after the crash.

Both statements are true.
They just will give the audience two different opinion about airbus.

On a side note, after this crash, the DGAC (French FAA) sent out a regulation stating that only the pilots of an aircraft were to be onboard for an airshow demonstration.

but I certainly do not believe a story that a plane that was totally demolished by explosion and impact would kill less than 5% of the people on board

that is the point. The aircraft was not demolished by the explosion. The passenger cabin remained basically intact, even though the wings/tank fuel did ignite- hence the giant fireball.

Remember, most of the time on a cotrolled belly landing on the ground, the plane is not demolished ! (fortunately)

It does sound very strange, and i am skeptical about a lot of things here, as for one why the show with that footage talked about it like it was a giant remote control plane................

The images show that most of the plane was destroyed. It looks like the fuselage was not very intact.

Was the actual cause of the error autolanding features that locked up when a pilot tried to move the controls? I remember a great detail of talk about some sort of measure in place to prevent pilots from making the wrong move when the plane was autolanding, so it locked out the pilots and flew right into the trees. Does any overhead footage exist or from the other side of the trees.

Acting on Mr. Asseline's request, the renowned Institute of Police Forensic Evidence and Criminology (IPSC) of Lausanne (Switzerland) examined documents from the crash and the trials and concluded that the black box of the aircraft had been switched after the accident.

About the pax, maybe, just maybe the fuselage didn't hit a huge tree...only the wings did and maybe the fuselage itself was intact. Then the pax evacuated while it was intact and after that, the fueselage was consumed by flames, leaving us with pictures of a "demolished" fuselage.

as for one why the show with that footage talked about it like it was a giant remote control plane...............

No, the footage said "here is the first aircraft entirely flown by a computer"
Which is an oversimplification by a journalist of the FBW system, where the stick/yoke gives command only to a computer which in turn transmit tjhose commands to the control system. The pilots were still in the plane. Fortunately.

Source: Investigation Commission of Ministry of Transport - France (1989). Final report concerning the accident which occurred on June 26th 1988 at Mulhouse-Habsheim (68) to the Airbus A 320, registered F-GFKC. Ministry of Planning, Housing, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

Source Type: Accident
Synopsis: "On the 26th of June 1988, the Air France Airbus A320 aircraft registered F-GFKC was to perform for Air Charter a series of flights with passengers on behalf of the Mulhouse flying club. For the first roundtrip flight from Basle-Mulhouse, the pilot in the left seat was the designated captain, and he had the controls. During taxiing, the captain explained in detail the program of the flyby to be made at Habsheim (first overflight at low speed, with landing gear and flaps extended, at a height of 100 ft., the overflight at high speed in clean configuration). The intention to make two overflights was transmitted to air traffic control by radio. The motorway was used as the first visual navigation landmark, then a track, parallel to the motorway, leading to the Habsheim aerodome. At 12:44, the aircraft left this level flight altitude and descended toward the aerodome, which was identified visually. The engines were throttled back. Flap and landing gear were extended at start of descent. The vertical speed during descent was 600 ft./min. The first officer informed the captain that the aircraft was reaching 100 ft. at 12:45.14 and simultaneously the radio altimeter emitted a "100 ft." message, the vertical speed still being 600 ft./min. The descent continued at a slightly lower rate down to 50 ft. above ground level (agl.), which was reached 8 sec. after passing through 100 ft. agl., then at a very low rate down to 30-35 ft. above the ground, the aircraft then remaining more or less in level flight. Throughout the whole descent and at the start of level flight made with engines set to flight idle, the aircraft decelerated and its pitch-up increased during the last 25 sec. of flight. The end of the descent and the level flight were made above Runway 34R. Between 12:45.34 and 12:45.35, the engine controls were set to initiate go-around (the acceleration of the engines can be seen on the flight data recorder at 12:45.35). The aircraft touched the trees shortly after the end of the runway at 12:45.40; at this time, engine speed was around 83% N1, the pitch altitude of the aircraft was 14°. The aircraft was totally destroyed by the successive impacts and the very violent fire which followed."